Family Firms’ Internationalization: The Importance of Home Country Institutions

This conceptual chapter focuses on how home country institutions may have a moderating influence on whether family firms internationalize more or less than non-family firms in a multi-country institutional context. We propose a conceptual model focusing on those institutions and institutional processes that shape firms’ ability to access resources in their home environment. These institutional factors may enhance the legitimacy of foreign operations and activities. The model also addresses the informal and poor home country institutional factors that restrain firms’ internationalization. We also discuss how various specific regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions influence the strategies of family firms’ internationalization, some of which are “born” into the organizational field of the home country and are thereby closely linked to family businesses.